And Life Begins Anew
by MelissaeWrites
Summary: In which the polar vortex was really more like the flu, and Jack is determined to get better before he ruins Easter. (Again.) Jackrabbit, Jack/Aster


A/N: This was actually posted on Easter on AO3. Just a cute little fic for the holiday and the warm weather. I was sick for pretty much the entirety of this winter due to the weather, so I decided to return the favor.

* * *

It was mid-March when Aster felt the first cold breeze wisping its way through his warren. The fur on the back of his neck prickled in the way he'd come to associate with Jack bloody Frost, and he whirled around to give the wanker a piece of his mind-only to find the warren devoid of pranks, snow, headaches, (smiles, laughter, easy companionship) and all-around infuriating tricksters.

Instead, there was only a light breeze riffling through his flowers, and just the barest bite of winter. He frowned and leaned forward to sniff at the air. It made his nose tingle, and not in the pleasant way Jack's magic usually did. There was something charged about its scent, and he didn't like it one bit.

Aster glanced around the warren. A clutch of eggs was playing polo in the river of dye, the laundry was drying in the midday sun, and a fresh batch of marshmallows had just been put out to set. Nothing that wouldn't keep. His decision was made before he realized it, and ignoring the tiny voice in the back of his head that screamed that _Easter was in only _one month, _was he insane?_, he grabbed a couple egg bombs and bounded out of the warren.

* * *

Aster was not expecting what he found topside. In the years since Aster and Jack had finally, shyly, become friends, Aster had begun to associate winter with joy and the sun glittering against snow. It had taken him a long time to shake the way the season made him feel ill at ease, the sounds of life and growth quieted by winter's harsh chill. It was only when he realized that those gentle sounds were replaced by Jack's impish laughter and children hollering as they played in the snow that he finally began to warm to it, so to speak. But there was no sign of any of those sounds now.

The earth was quiet. Despite the quickly approaching spring, snow covered the ground, and it was obvious from the sodden ground and wilted grass that it had been there for quite some time. If the plants hadn't told him a story of a haggard winter, however, the children definitely would have. There were creases around their eyes, a weariness that didn't belong there. Instead of frolicking in the fields and building snowmen, they were trudging through the snow with dejected exhaustion. These were children who had had more than their fill of winter, and judging by the gray skies overhead, there was no end in sight.

Aster's eyes hardened. This was not Jack Frost's winter. Jack, irresponsible little larrikin that he was, cared about children. He would never purposefully put those shadows in their eyes. Something had gone very wrong this winter, and he meant to find out what it was.

It was easy by now for Aster to track Jack's scent, and he tried not to think too hard on the matter. The scent seemed to be a part of the wind itself these days, brushing through his fur and curling up against his skin. He used to tense up whenever he smelled it, too used to a fight following that fresh, clean scent, but now it smelled like friendship. Family. He didn't think about what else it smelled like.

Today, though, it smelled slightly off, and he followed it with some trepidation until he found himself at a small cave in northern Minnesota. The walls were so rimed with ice that at first he thought, irrationally, that maybe it had been carved with the stuff. It took real force of will for him to step inside, and he, not for the first time, wished that pooka grew winter coats just like Earth's rabbits. Maybe he would, at that, if he weren't tied so inextricably to spring. As of right now, however, it was only his normal coat that protected him from the cave's icy interior, and it wasn't doing the best job.

"Oi, Jack? You here?" he called, and willed his teeth not to chatter. Jack never let him hear the end of that. Neither did Tooth, for that matter.

Jack poked his head out from a cranny deep inside the cave. "'Roo? What are you doing here?" he asked.

"It's Aster, you little drongo, and don't act like you don't know that," Aster said waspishly, but his voice held little of his usual bite. It was too hard to be angry with Jack when he looked so incredibly _terrible._ He was even thinner than usual, and the dark shadows beneath his eyes were stark enough against his pale skin that he looked almost like a raccoon, and Aster might have teased him about it if he weren't so obviously miserable. "You all right, there, Frosty?"

"Couldn't be better," Jack said waving a hand and leaning heavily on his staff. "Don't you have eggs to be painting or something?"

"Too right I do," Aster said, and he let his skepticism color his words. "But my warren's been awfully _chilly_ lately, and I have a feeling I know who to blame."

A moment before, Aster probably would have said that Jack couldn't get paler, but that would have been proven incorrect. Jack's face was almost ashen. "It's getting cold in the warren, too?" he asked, and Aster could hear a note of what he would almost call fear. But since when had Jack Frost been afraid of a little chill?

"Felt the first chill down there a couple hours ago," he answered. Then he paused. "Too?"

Jack looked away.

"Jack," Aster tried again, "What're you keeping from me?"

"I-" The sentence that Jack was obviously very reluctant to squeeze out was cut off by a hacking cough. Aster would have accused him of doing it to squeeze out of answering the question if it didn't sound so much like the kid was coughing up his lungs. "I think I'm sick."

"You don't say," Aster said dryly, and stepped forward to lay one paw against Jack's forehead. He was used to Jack's skin being uncomfortably chilled, but he was currently even warmer than Aster-and pooka ran warm. "Crikey, you're burning up."

Jack swayed forward slightly into his touch, which only served to concern Aster further. The little blighter had always been a bit touch-starved, but he was usually better at hiding it. "I feel like I'm melting," Jack murmured, his tone like a confession.

At that, Aster let him lean further still until he all but fell into his arms. Aster wrapped him up in lean arms and sighed. "How long've you been like this, Frostbite?"

"I dunno," Jack muttered into his chest. His voice was very small, and Aster's ears had to twitch forward to catch the words. "A few months, maybe."

Aster's brows went down. It wasn't really a shock that Jack could get sick for a few months; diseases strong enough to affect Guardians were few and far between, and they tended to linger. What did bother him was that Jack had let it get to this point without telling him. Or-or any of them. It didn't matter that Jack hadn't told him personally, of course. Aster ignored the double-beat of his heart that protested this assertion. "And what have you tried to kick it?" he asked.

Jack nuzzled into his chest like he was trying to chase the rumbling of his speech. "Everything," he murmured. "I tried all the remedies that my mother used when I was a kid, and then I asked Jamie what moms were using these days. But things kept getting worse, and then the weather started..."

"Getting bad?" Aster offered.

A sound that Aster placed as a laugh dragged itself out of Jack's throat. "Yeah, you could say that. Every time I sneeze, there's another snowstorm. It never used to be this bad when I got sick."

Aster hmphed and allowed his paw to trail down Jack's back. "Well, you're a Guardian now, aren't you? Tied more strongly to your season, I'd wager."

"But that's just it!" Jack pulled back just far enough to look up at him, and Aster was surprised to see the strength of conviction in his rheumy eyes. "I'm a Guardian now. I can't keep losing control like this. I've tried _everything,_ Aster, because I knew-" He clamped his mouth shut and averted his gaze again.

"Knew what, Jack?" Aster prodded.

Jack sighed and didn't move his eyes from where they were trained on the wall next to them. "I knew that Easter was coming soon. A couple extra blizzards are no problem when it's still January, but when March is coming up and Georgia's iced over, that's a problem. Easter's pretty late this year, but I don't know if I'll be able to stop in time," he admitted.

Aster felt something constrict painfully in his chest. Honestly, most years, he figured that Jack didn't even know when Easter was. It wasn't as if the other Guardians had ever quite gotten the knack for predicting it. But to know that he'd not only known about it, but had been worried about how his control problems might affect it... Aster had learned many times over that Jack was not the sprite he thought he was back in '68, but there were always chances to be reminded anew.

He cleared his throat, willing his emotions back down into his chest where they belonged, and said, "Well, let's see what we can do about that."

"Aster?"

Aster took a moment to be pleased that Jack was finally looking him in the eye again. "I may not know much about winter spirits, but I've been around the block a few times when it comes to Guardians getting sick," he said with a wry look. And if North getting the flu hadn't been bad enough, Sandy's tendency to sneeze a handful of sand into the faces of those nearest to him had been the absolute worst. It had been impossible to do anything when all of them were falling asleep all the time.

Jack frowned and took a step back, his posture screaming defensive. "And so what do you suggest we do?"

Aster gave him what he hoped was a reassuring smile and continued to ignore the voice in the back of his head shouting _EASTER! EASTER IS COMING! _"Why don't you come back to the warren with me?"

* * *

It had taken an awful lot of convincing, but Aster had finally gotten Jack to give in and come to the warren, which was a relief. Aster wasn't sure that the herbs he'd need would survive the trip to Jack's snowy hideout. And that wasn't even taking into consideration his own furry hide.

Honestly, though, Aster suspected that what Jack needed more than anything was a simple nursemaid. None of the Guardians were exactly known for taking care of themselves, and often all they needed when they got really sick was for one of the others to force them into bed and care for them. It wasn't as if Aster had never needed one of them to help him out after a rough Easter.

Jack, it seemed, was even worse at recuperating than North. He kept trying to get out of bed and help out around the warren, protesting that he could hardly take Aster away from his work when Easter was approaching so quickly. Truthfully, Aster really didn't have the time to nurse a sick winter sprite back to health, but something inside him balked at calling in one of the others to help instead. So he just said something disparaging and cuffed Jack gently 'round the head every time he voiced his concerns.

On the upside, Easter preparations had been going swimmingly. His googies had been more obedient than they'd ever been previously, and he had been getting intoxicating bursts of inspiration that he knew better to link too closely to his houseguest. Still, having company in his home was a welcome change. When he was sitting next to Jack's bed, painting intricate designs on surprisingly pliant eggs and telling him stories about the way back, when he hadn't been alone and the universe had been different, he felt more alive than he had in centuries. Maybe, he admitted to himself, he'd been alone for far too long. Certainly when he saw Jack's snowy head poke out the door, an obnoxiously large grin on his face, he knew he didn't want to be alone any longer.

A few days became a few weeks, and Jack steadily improved. By the time April rolled around, sporadic sunny days were warming areas formerly ice-ridden. By the week before Easter, birds were singing and children were starting to get the spark back in their eyes. Jack started looking tense a couple days before the big day, and when Aster asked him, with raised eyebrows, what he was up to, Jack just smiled tightly and said "Grabbing the reins."

When Easter dawned bright and sunny, Aster wasn't sure which of them was more relieved. And when, in a fit of triumph, Jack crowded into his space and kissed him, Aster was even less sure which of them was more delighted.


End file.
